


Magnum Opus

by WritingfromtheVoid



Series: With Starry Eyes [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Constructive Criticism Welcome, Gen, Horror, Implied/Referenced Torture, Lovecraftian, My First AO3 Post, Not Beta Read, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23483803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingfromtheVoid/pseuds/WritingfromtheVoid
Summary: At 73 years old, Lydia Honey considers her writing career and ponders how she'll leave behind an impact on the world.Edit: Undergoing full rewrite.
Series: With Starry Eyes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689511
Kudos: 3





	Magnum Opus

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time posting here. I'd really appreciate comments on what you think.

Before Lydia prepares to slice of the last bit of skin with her scalpel, she checks the thermostat to make sure that the temperature is just right. A cool 50 degrees Fahrenheit. She starts at the throat and curses at the slight sudden death rattle. There were flecks of blood on her apron. She contemplated the mistake. She'd forgotten to stock up on ammonia. She wanted to laugh at her mistake, but something about the moment felt fragile. Like any sudden change might ruin her mood for the rest of the day. 

So she clenched her fist, taking in the chill of a basement that was not technically apart of the house. Her work was almost done anyway. She'd separated most of the skin into square sheets that would be the pages of her next book, and she only needed to remove the rest so she could turn finish turning the sinew into thread that would stitch together the binding. 

Lydia hated shopping, especially when it got in the way of her writing Though it was more the case she hated leaving her house. She took a moment to check on the plot of soil where she had planted fresh roses. No progress yet, but she accepted it nonetheless. She smiled at her neighbors and gave curt greetings. She briefly considered pretending to be hard of hearing, but didn't really want to bother testing it out. As usual the drive was uneventful. She idly rummaged through her memory of the past decades, seeing the businesses that lived and survived. Shops that she hadn't even realized were gone, houses that were now development projects. Money was coming into the town and it most certaintly was not into any of their pockets. 

A mistake that forces Lydia to smile dumbly at the grocery score clerks She needed to go shopping anyway. Thomas, her neighbor's son, was kind enough to offer help with her bags. They don't make boys like those anymore, unfortunately.

On the walk home she enjoys the stillness of town life. Unchanging, frozen in a gentler, more idyllic time. For a second she convinces herself that it will never change. But of course reality comes to remind her of the coming change. Mainly when she sidesteps a used needle as she passed through the parking lot with thoughts of old times.

It was overcast by the time she left the stores, with the coming rain pressing on her aged joints. She'd ran out of ammonia and she'd forgotten to check the weather.

The ache didn't hurt like it was supposed to. Pain didn't really mean much to her anymore, it was just another sensation. A low groan filtered through her slippers and floorboards. Her husband was awake, the rain must've riled the vermin beneath the house. He'd been there for decades and he won't die, not until Lydia lets him. The groaning stops as he chews on something that must've crawled in his mouth. She couldn't remember the last time he'd ever so much as stirred.

Lydia stared at the spot on the floor, she was almost tempted to check upon him. 

Almost.

She tried to stave the ennui with cleaning, hoping that the monotony would give her some fresh prospective. But no matter how much she scrubbed her apron, she could never lose herself in it. All her chores were done, there was still the body in her workshop.

After that she ate a light dinner of sauteed vegetables and chicken cutlets. Lydia main focus is mostly on a letter about her recent commission. The Vermin God's Tale, requested by a customer in Russia. It was filled with mad ramblings that she was now struggling to focus on. 

Her latest piece had received good enough review. The Vermin God's Tale, a tome she made to commune with the skittering divinities. She put the letter aside and thought back fondly on the project. She had only needed one test subject for it. She tried it on her neighbor's son. A little boy who was always nasty to the other children and had gotten on her naughty list when he knocked over her pot of marigolds. She gave him the book, and like all her other pieces, it read him just as much as he read it.

Admittedly she should've been prepared to dispose of the mess. The body afterward was more maggots and flies than body by the time she woke up. But like all the others she fed it to the gaping maw in her attic and called an exterminator to deal with the infestation. His parents hadn't bothered reporting him missing. Though when his neighbor did, she was sure to visit the house and offer her sympathy and evaluate their suspicions. They barely cared, and it hadn't taken long to see that the apple had not not fallen far from the tree. So when CPS came to evaluate the situation, she was had been thankful that no one had seen her invite the boy to her house when she caught him out at night.

She put down the letter and reached for her cup of lemonade. She must've not been paying attention as soon enough the glass was on it's side soaking through the two letters. 

"Damn it all!" she hissed, standing up and pushing her seat back. "What's gotten into me?" 

She'd read the first letter, but her drink had soaked through the second. It was addressed to her, thanking her for her other project.

Soaked as it was, she couldn't help but reminisce on that one. The Book of the Unsong. It had been difficult finding the musicians to help her make it, but in these times there were an abundance of kids with music degrees looking to make ends meet. For five months she lured them in. Drugging each one and letting them die. Of course, as her husband knew, all things that set foot in her house needed permission to stay dead. She waited patiently as they transcribed the sounds and melody sung by the things that dream and crawl outside the walls of the world. Each one desperate not to go back. They stayed that way even as she made the pages from their skin and the bindings from their bones.

Her neighbors never said much. Everyone in town had their own theory as to what Grandma Honey does for a living. She divulged that she wrote books and was something of a figure in the niche writing scene. So most didn't particularly care when they saw the innocent enough looking stranger or two visit her. 

She was introverted but well respected enough. She attended church and listened as the Reverend preached about the petty cosmologies of heaven and hell. When neighbors moved out, she offered cookies, baked with love and her old family recipe of supermarket cookie mix.

Yet for some reason the passing memory of it gnawed at her in a way it hadn't before. Her business was doing well and her contracts never failed to prepare a fresh supply of bodies, but she felt lacking. She staved her work off for as long as she could today. So now she finds herself sitting on the floor, doing something that she had not done in a long time. Talking to her husband.

"I don't know what it is Gerald," Lydia said, holding a chicken bone to his mouth. Biting takes effort. He was a blind thing, time and the dry rot had long since left the surface of his eyes a desiccated mess. The fresh air and bone was like heaven compared to beneath the floorboards. "My spark is still there. I can do the work but it just feels so...I don't even know."

He continued to gnaw.

"I almost wish I hadn't taken your tongue," Lydia said. "Remember Isaac, well recently his brat's brat got caught with some weed. Not even the worst thing, this town just isn't as fresh it used to be. All the good ones are going to college, everyone else is shooting up, screwing and hoping that there'll be enough jobs left when they get out of the school. Even the Reverend is the same, sleeping with girls that could be his granddaughter."

Gerald groaned, somewhat in pain as his weak teeth tried to crack the bone and get at what was inside.

"Fifty goddamn years and what do I have to show?" Lydia sighed. "All so some madmen around the world can whisper my name in their oh so secret places. I'm a prophet without any faith. This is how I know the Bible is a fairy tale, the fact that Jesus wasn't a wine seller instead of a carpenter."

Gerald was mumbling now, she was a good enough lip reader to know that he was reciting scripture. The mention of the Bible triggering something somewhere in the deep tangles of his broken mind.

"Yes," Lydia said. "Maybe God is part of the answer. But I don't even know if he's real. There is no good afterlife, I've seen it myself. But in some way I've still seen the divine. Hmm...it's most certainly given me a purpose in my life. It's given me passion when all the other wives were busy with wine and pills and kids. Yes, maybe that's it. Maybe I'm just tired of doing everything for my sake, maybe I should give back to my community. Give this damn town something real to look up to. But how am I supposed to do that? When they're all so..."

There was a knocking on the door, she snapped the bone and left Gerald almost weeping with at the taste of the marrow.

"I knew I could rely on you, sweetie," she said, before placing the board back over his face.

It was dark outside. Beyond her patio, the world was bereft of streetlights and the ambiance of the night sky. A figure stood right before the stairs of her patio. The darkness he walked on was thick and stagnant like tar or mud. Human, but there wasn't a single thing about his features that she could commit to memory, even while looking at him.

"Lydia Honey."

"I'm currently on sabbatical," Lydia replied. "If you'd like, I can negotiate a time to discuss commissions. You can sched-"

"I'm not interested in what you can offer me,"the man said, "I'm here to help you."

"I'm not interested in a god..." Lydia said. "I've tried them all." She added hastily.

"I'm not here to spread anyone's word. Rather-" the stranger said, from his coat he pulled out a book. One of hers, but she did not remember making it. "-I want to help you spread yours."

She paused and then she fully opened the door. She stood in a square shaped sun shining in a space where even light was scared to tread.

"Please, make yourself at home."

____

**Author's Note:**

> Just in case anyone wonders. I posted a far less polished version of this on r/Writingprompts.


End file.
